Returning: Children Alone
by FiresFromOurHearts
Summary: Susan Bones. Helga Hufflepuff. It doesn't matter what name you call her by, she is who she is regardless. Her story restarts itself in 1979, and the world will watch and wait.


**Assignment #3 - Wandlore; Task #1 - Write about something/someone being reborn. Written for the forum Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments). **

**I may extend this in the future, because it could be something interesting to explore. I apologise if I didn't engage with the prompt to its full extent, but this didn't want to go much further alone (or, perhaps, I have not felt like writing much recently and this has translated over with that hidden between the lines). Regardless, thank you for giving this a go.**

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People look at Susan Bones and think of her family—not her. She doesn't mind that. After all, she is proud of her family and all their accomplishments and mourns the various loses. At Hogwarts, people look at her and started seeing a Hufflepuff –hardworking, kind, a duffer. That's what people see.

Susan Bones, however, is not like most people. In fact, one could quite easily say that Susan Bones is quite different from most people. But, perhaps, that's getting ahead of ourselves. Let's go back to the beginning, yes?

Susan Bones is born towards the end of 1979, when the war is still raging with all of its fury. She is born a day after the news of her grandparents' deaths reaches her parents. Like all children, she is born into a world that is cruel and kind, and she screams about it, crying as babies tend to. Nonetheless, she grows quiet soon enough, eyes wide and watchful, even though all she can see are blurred blobs of colour. This is the first sign that Susan is not like most people. It is far from the last.

As she grows up, it becomes clear that Susan is quite a happy little child. She finds joy in running barefoot through the long grass that decorates their backyard, in charging through the shallow creek and digging in its soft sandbanks.

Hidden away from the harshness of the war, there's no way that she should be able to feel fear whenever someone comes to their house and then leaves soon afterward—but she clearly does. She seems aware that there is something going on, even if no one has told her anything. She loves her family fiercely and she does so in a manner that is reminiscent of someone loving something they may lose without warning.

The war ends when Susan is almost two years old. The war ends and Susan has her ma and her aunt and a few distant cousins. Everyone else has been killed, including her ma's wife because her ma's a Muggle and can't fight directly, but someone has to—and so her mum does too. At two, she should not know enough to mourn. And yet, it seems like she does.

Still, the war may be over and although it feels like life won't continue at times, it does. People rebuild and celebrate and mourn. They keep moving forward. It is in this world that Susan grows older.

As she grows, it's obvious that Susan is kind, gentle, loyal, and—somehow—wise. She takes her time thinking, turns problems over in her head, and proposes an answer that is possibly the best solution for everyone involved. At times, she seems forgetful. On multiple occasions, she has forgotten to turn the lumos charms on when entering a room, almost as if she isn't aware of their existence.

So yes, she grows and is the kind of child everyone wants—gentle, kind, and so on. She has a few idiocrasies, of course, but what child hasn't?

When she gets her Hogwarts letter, no one is surprised. After all, she's been showing signs of magic for years and she comes from the Bones family, who—whilst having both Muggle and magical heritage—are predominately based in the wizarding world. Her ma and her aunt celebrate with her, and there's some discussion over what house she may be in, but it doesn't really matter. They won't care. All the houses have their upsides and downsides, and no matter what Susan will still be Susan and they will still love her.

And all too soon, yet not soon enough, Susan is sitting in the Great Hall and the Sorting Hat is on her head and- Well, maybe that's getting ahead of ourselves once again.

The Hogwarts Express is an amazing sight to behold and Susan falls in love with it. It is warm and welcoming and it feels so much like home that Susan wants to cry. She doesn't, but it's a close call. After stowing her luggage away, Susan doesn't bother sitting, but takes her wand and some chocolate and sets off down the train. She passes several compartments with older students in them, but they are talking amongst one another, laughing, and seem generally happy to be there. They aren't the ones she's looking for.

It takes a bit over five minutes to find what she is looking for, and when she finds them, something inside her _aches_. She knows exactly what—or who—it is too. But that's not important. No, what matters is that there is another eleven-year-old alone and clearly scared in a compartment. Hogwarts is meant to be a home, but there is something distinctly unwelcoming about being placed on a train with strangers and not getting a choice about it.

She won't stand for that.

It's easy to open the door and slip in. She grins wide, holds the chocolate out and says, "I'm Susan Bones. What's your name?"

And most people will say friendship is hard, and they're not wrong—but starting it, that's pretty easy. You just have to greet someone and introduce yourself.

Susan falls in love with the boats that take them across the lake. It is chilly and the water looks horrifically cold but it is magical and she is so, so excited to be home. Her first sight of Hogwarts steals her breath, and she can do nothing but stare at the castle, out of reach yet so close.

Her first step onto Hogwarts' castle stones leaves her stumbling, and it is only the grace of another student that prevents her from falling. She gasps, caught in the magic of Hogwarts, caught in her castle's welcome.

Because of course Hogwarts would welcome its founder back. The wards are tied into the castle's framework and so it is from the stones the magic curls around Susan's feet, wrapping around her ankles, an invisible embrace. Susan has always loved Hogwarts and this only makes her love the castle more.

Hogwarts knows Susan, knows her magic, her belief, her kindness, her strength. It reaches out to her and Susan smiles, the feeling curling in her heart and claiming a piece it already had.

It's not surprising at all, when Susan sits beneath the Sorting Hat and it calls out Hufflepuff. Before it says anything, though, it welcomes her, greets her. And Susan can do naught but greet the Sorting Hat in return. It is the Hat's last message to her that she remembers the most—

_These children need you Helga. _

—and Helga Hufflepuff vowed to herself, some time ago, to help the children the best she could. That vow still stands, even if it's been a few centuries since she was last alive.


End file.
